PETER LUCAS: GE lured to Boston despite Warren's best efforts

Otherwise General Electric, her archenemy, would never have dared come into Warren's backyard, let alone announce that it was planning to transfer its headquarters to Boston.

What a windfall for Boston. What an embarrassment for Warren.

Here you had the state's senior U.S. senator, a Democrat, the co-founder of Occupy Boston and chief critic of banks, Wall Street, Microsoft and General Electric ("You didn't build that"), so out of the loop that she might have been representing her home state of Oklahoma rather than Massachusetts.

But General Electric was her special target. She claimed -- later accurately disputed -- that General Electric "paid nothing, zero" in taxes "while kids are drowning in debt to get an education."

Warren did not mention that at the time, she was being paid more than $350,000 a year to teach at Harvard.

Warren was so far out of touch that she was attacking General Electric on the Senate floor and in speeches during the period that the state's political leaders were wooing the giant company to relocate to Massachusetts.

Perhaps she was too busy running around the country, attacking the banks and being mentioned as presidential material.

She at one point attacked Washington tax breaks for companies like GE and Microsoft as "a giant wet kiss for the tax-dodgers."

Sen. Ted Kennedy, whose seat Warren holds, must be shaking his head from wherever he is. If nothing else, Kennedy, no matter his liberal beliefs, always brought jobs to Massachusetts.

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Warren frightens them away.

In addition to her anti-capitalism jihad ("the system is rigged"), Warren has also raged at income inequality in the country, so much so that the former Harvard professor has become a national celebrity among leftists. However, the income gap between the rich and the poor in Boston has only widened during her time in office. Boston, according to the Brookings Institution, now ranks first in income inequality among the nation's top 100 cities. When Warren was elected in 2012, Boston ranked fourth.

So it came as something of a shock when General Electric announced last week that it is moving the headquarters of its billion-dollar corporation from Fairfield, Conn., to Boston, Warren's home turf. And Warren's name was not even mentioned.

It is a wonder that GE, enemy No. 1 on Warren's hit list, decided to come to Boston. Yet it is also understandable, given that Massachusetts has become a center for innovation.

Boston is the home of great colleges and universities, health-care institutions, technology startups, life sciences, professional sports teams and what amounts to a new city in the Seaport District, where GE is expected to relocate. Boston, in short, is in the middle of an economic and physical renaissance.

General Electric, which will bring some 800 new jobs with it, will be part of that renaissance.

The symbolism of the move is huge. Boston and Massachusetts used to be the place where businesses and jobs left. Now it is the place where businesses want to be.

And the tax incentives for a corporation like GE are not bad either. The state is offering some $120 million to go toward tax incentives and infrastructure improvements to the property GE picks as its new headquarters, while Boston is prepared to offer as much as $25 million over 20 years in property-tax relief.

In return, Boston not only gets 800 new, high-paying jobs, but the relocation of the global giant to Boston will be a draw for other companies to come to the city.

It also drives a stake in the heart of the old "Taxachusetts" label that was pinned on the state during a high-tax era when businesses and industries were moving out, not in.

The most important lesson to be learned from GE's decision to come to Boston is how much can be accomplished when leaders of divergent political views work together for a common goal.

Here you had Charlie Baker, a Republican governor with a corporate mentality, partnering with Marty Walsh, a Democrat and a child of organized labor, both willing to put political partisanship aside for the good of the city and the state.

Unlike Elizabeth Warren, both Baker and Walsh are politically mature enough to understand that you do not create jobs by attacking the job creators.

General Electric, and all the jobs it brings with it, is coming to Boston not because of Elizabeth Warren, but despite Elizabeth Warren.

Peter Lucas' political column appears Tuesday and Friday. Email him at luke1825@aol.com.

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